Number 4 · 24th of February 2014 · Revised on 28th of February 2014
Securing the “China Dream”: What Xi Jinping wants to
achieve with the National Security Commission (NSC)
by Liwen Qin (International Policy Fellow, MERICS)
Key findings:

China’s newly established National Security Commission (NSC) is built as a cross-cutting
governance body, aiming at centralizing power to a level unprecedented since the death of
Mao Zedong.

The NSC may allow Chinese President Xi Jinping to overcome previous bureaucratic
barriers and formulate long term strategies, mobilizing a wide spectrum of resources to deal
with broadly defined national security issues efficiently, including China’s bargaining power
in the global market.

Although the foremost motivations of Xi to establish an NSC are to consolidate his political
power and resolve domestic crisis, the establishment of China’s NSC might have significant
impact on the existing order of global security.

China is likely to leave the path of Deng Xiaoping’s “Hide and Bide” policy and pursue a
much more proactive foreign and security policy in the near future.

The “China Dream” put forth by Xi Jinping as his vision for China’s development aims at
realizing “national rejuvenation”, which suggests that China is ready to openly and
systematically translate its economic power into political and security clout in global affairs.

Xi has laid out several ambitious plans that depict extensive areas of international initiative
and influence for China, extending to the Middle East and Europe. These efforts would
require an effective NSC for broad-based diplomatic and policy coordination.
Among Xi Jinping’s multiple reform initiatives
since he assumed power in March 2013, the
establishment of China’s national security
commission is a key project. This commission
centralizes power to the highest degree since the
death of Mao Zedong. Several major factors
Number 4 · 24th of February 2014 · Revised on 28th of February 2014
contributed to the birth of the NSC in January
2014, which two previous presidents failed to
establish.
According to China’s official media Xinhua news
agency, “the responsibilities of the commission
will include the construction of a rule of law system
concerning state security (sic), research,
resolving major issues of national security, setting
principles and policies, as well as stipulating and
implementing strategies. Its mission is to handle
an all-inclusive range of conventional and
unconventional national security affairs.”
(Xinhua, 2014) To fulfil these far-reaching goals,
the current power structure of “collective
leadership” based on a checks-and-balances
principle set up in Deng Xiaoping’s era will need
to be modified to achieve a higher level of
efficiency. Constitutional changes and comprehensive bureaucratic rearrangements need to be
planned and carried out. This colossal project will
require considerable efforts and time, and carries
many political risks.
If Xi succeeds in implementing his design of the
NSC, he will bring significant changes to China’s
foreign policy. It will divert from Deng Xiaoping’s
“Hide and Bide” principle kept for more than three
decades. China will be more proactive in
international affairs, create more levers to
advance its interests abroad, and maybe even
begin to seek military alliances and provide
security protection for weaker allies. This
could result in significant changes of the
global security structure over the next decade.
Why could Xi Jinping build up the NSC,
but not his predecessors?
The first attempt to establish a national security
commission (NSC) was made by President Jiang
Zemin in 1997, whose intention was clearly to
perpetuate his influence and return to the
chairmanship system. The idea was said to be
inspired by the National Security Council of the
United States. Jiang’s idea was rejected by other
Politburo Standing Committee senior members,
resulting in a compromise – the founding of the
National Security Leading Small Group (NSLSG)
to coordinate national security affairs in 2000.
NSLSG remains a sluggish supplementary
coordination body that is mostly responsible for
responding to irregular major crises. The power
struggles ensuing from Jiang Zemin’s unwilling
retirement has made it even more difficult for
Jiang’s successor, Hu Jintao, to establish a
powerful cross-cutting security governance body.
However, the calls for an NSC continued for more
than two decades, as China faced increasingly
complex national security issues. Three major
reasons contributed to the promulgation of the
establishment of NSC by the Central Committee
Reform plan in November 2013.
Xi’s unstable success in the power
struggle
First, fierce tensions within the Communist Party
leadership made it urgent for Xi to establish the
NSA as an instrument to consolidate his power. In
2012, Xi met with severe opposition from powerful
rivals prior to assuming the presidency. (Qin, 2012)
His victory in this ongoing political battle has
remained tentative and unstable. He launched an
anti-corruption campaign since late 2012 which
has brought him many resentments inside the
bureaucratic system. As the majority of CPC’s
power centre, the Politburo Standing Committee
(PSC) is going to retire in 2017 (five out of seven)
due to the age limit, various factions inside the
party are eagerly competing to get hold of the
coming vacancies. All these factors have added
uncertainties to Xi’s status as a leader and the
prospects of his reform plans. Taking over the
levers of national security is thus the precondition
for Xi’s steady control of power. An incomplete
name list of the NSC members was disclosed in
January 2014, which shows that Xi was eager to
launch the NSC, but he had to, and still has to,
bargain very hard with diverse factions over the
personnel composition.
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Number 4 · 24th of February 2014 · Revised on 28th of February 2014
Coping with rising domestic crisis
Second, the CPC government needs a more
efficient body to better streamline the civilian and
military side of the security apparatus, so as to
cope with the increasing domestic pressures
threatening its rule, as explained by various
Chinese state media and scholars. The foremost
mission of the NSC is not to advance China’s
overseas interests and security, but to cope
with the widespread social dissent that is
causing more than 100,000 annual cases of
social unrest nationwide. (Lu/Li /Pei, 2012)
These protests and riots are mostly against
corruption, abuse of power, land grab, social
inequality, environmental damage, minority rights
and violation of labour rights. Environment-related
unrest now increases at an annual rate of 30%.
(CASS, 2013)
The current domestic security mechanisms built
under former President Hu Jintao, the “System for
Maintaining Stability (维稳系统)”, encompasses
the secret services, para-military and public
security forces. Its mission is to keep social unrest
under control. To obtain this goal, it features a fast
growing budget that exceeds the defence budget.
But its focus on supressing the dissent with force
not only fails to address the causes, but also
creates resentment among the population.
The government is also struggling to consolidate
its counterterrorism operations and fight against
separatists’ movements surging in Xinjiang and
Tibet, which are believed to be supported by
“subversive foreign forces”. As Foreign Ministry
spokesman Qin Gang stated during a regular
Foreign Ministry press briefing when asked about
the NSC, “with the establishment of the National
Security Council in China, terrorists are getting
nervous, separatists are getting nervous and
extremists are getting nervous.” (Foreign Ministry
of PRC, 2013)
Time to intensify China’s power projection globally
Third, though divided, different CPC factions
cannot openly oppose the idea that the government needs better information-sharing and
coordination to react quickly to international
security challenges, to advance China’s interests overseas and to handle its territorial disputes. In the recent past, the disconnect between
the State Council (responsible for foreign policy)
and the Party’s Central Military Commission
(CMC, in charge of security policy) has led to various embarrassments and inefficient responses to
outside challenges. One example was given by a
South China Sea report of the International Crisis
Group (ICG, 2012): When the US-Navy Ship Impeccable was confronted by Chinese paramilitary
and navy vessels on 8 March 2009, the Chinese
foreign ministry was apparently not immediately
informed and had to learn what had happened
from Western interlocutors. The lack of coordination between government branches also creates a
situation of relative disorder giving different
branches the opportunity to compete for a bigger
role in policy areas of overlapping responsibility.
This situation of bureaucratic infighting has been
forcing the hand of central leaders. These problems are even more pronounced when dealing
with relatively new and particularly cross-cutting
security issues like cybersecurity, energy security
and protection of overseas Chinese.
Furthermore, as China’s economic power grows,
it starts to intensify its power projection. China
has become much more assertive in its
territorial claims, partly to push back what it
perceives as US “containment against China”
in the Asia Pacific region in recent years.
During the past two years, China has pursued
a rather effective approach that the People’s
Daily termed “combination punches” (组合拳):
firstly, using law enforcement units on the sea
to assert its power but avoid military conflicts;
secondly, using economic power to split up
ASEAN countries’ stances on territorial
disputes with China. (People’s Daily online,
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Number 4 · 24th of February 2014 · Revised on 28th of February 2014
2012). Such “combined punches” also require a
supervising body setting strategies and
coordinating multiple relevant organs. It is an
argument that faces very little opposition in the
otherwise divided power structure, especially
when regional countries including Japan and
Australia have set up their own NSC in recent
years. As former US Assistant Secretary of State
for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell
has observed, “There is a larger trend across Asia
to bring deliberations and decision-making into
presidential or ministerial offices in an effort to
better respond to the rapidly changing security
environment in Asia.” (Campbell, 2014)
Will the NSC
leader-ship”?
change
“collective
The “collective leadership” of the CPC was
designed after Mao’s death by Deng Xiaoping and
several senior leaders to prevent any single
person from monopolizing the political power. It is
thus difficult to imagine how the PSC, sharing
parallel powers since the late 1970’s, would allow
Xi to fully command an organ that is even more
ambitious than Jiang Zemin’s failed plan.
According to various reports and analyses, the
NSC will possibly exert commanding power over
the Public Security Ministry (the police), the armed
police, legal system, the secret service, the PLA,
the Foreign Ministry and the party’s propaganda
office, etc.
The structure of the NSC follows the CPC’s
standard procedure, restricting the new body to
the collective leadership principle and making the
chairman answer to the Politbureau. Its name was
crowned with “Central Committee ( 中 央 )” (the
Central Committee of the CPC) when it was
established in January. A document issued after
the meeting stated that “the commission,
which will answer to the Politbureau and its
standing committee, will be the CPC Central
Committee agency responsible for decision
making, deliberation and coordination on
national security work.” (Xinhua, 2014)
So far, except the chairman (Xi Jinping) and Vice
Chairmen (Li Keqiang and Zhang Dejiang), no
other names inside this organ have been revealed
and are obviously still under negotiations among
the PSC members. The role of the Chairman is
not yet clearly defined. It is not yet clear how
and whether the complex coordination will
work more efficiently than the Central Small
Leading Groups. A less ambitious initiative
attempted by Xi to simplify the power
structure, namely the integration of four
different maritime law enforcement units
under the China Coast Guard, has been stuck
six months past the deadline set by Beijing.
(Kwok, 2014) The reasons include unclear
policies and lack of resources for rearranging
current employees, red tape and bureaucratic
resistance to giving up current division of powers.
The NSC’s future work would encounter even
more challenges because it involves many more
government branches and established interests.
More institutional reforms to be done
Outside the party’s power centre, the
establishment of a “Central Party’s NSC” has
triggered multiple questions by legal experts and
scholars in China. An expert on constitutional law,
Professor Ma Ling from China Youth University for
Political Science, raised that it is unsuitable for a
party organ to use “national” as its name. A
“national” entity should be established under
the State Council, and the establishment of
such a permanent power structure would
require a constitutional change. To avoid the
“Central Party’s NSC” overtaking the role of the
government, which is to execute national policies,
a governmental NSC should be established at
least in name, and combined with the CPNSC.
(Ma, 2014)
More optimistic analysts compare China’s NSC to
the National Security Council of the United States
or the Security Council of the Russian Federation.
Though many international observers tend to
see China’s NSC as a copy of the US model,
Chinese security experts tend to see China’s
NSC as closer to the Russian institutional
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Number 4 · 24th of February 2014 · Revised on 28th of February 2014
setup. This is because China’s NSC is not
designed to be only a consulting body, but to carry
out multiple functions like decision-making and
rule-making. It also covers a wider spectrum of
issues than its US counterpart, including
economic security, and features a more intense
homeland security focus. These experts also
believe that the NSC will not be granted the
executive powers that replace the governmental
organizations. (Xin, 2013, Hu/Wang, 2014)
What will Xi Jinping and the NSC bring
to global security?
If Xi fails to summon enough support, his NSC
could be turned into a side-lined body that does
not differ much from the sluggish National Security Leading Small Group. If Xi successfully
gathers sufficient support and power, he
could move Chinese security policy to a
bolder path towards asserting China’s interests overseas and starting to reshape the existing security architecture without armed
conflicts.
More transparency and consistency?
Some foreign analysts see positive aspects of the
establishment of the NSC, foreseeing a more coherent Chinese foreign policy, and less confusion about future provocative offhand remarks by
Chinese military officers, wondering whether they
represent the official security policy. They see that
China will increase its capacity to respond to fastmoving crises instead of leaving the other side involved in a security crisis or incident in the dark for
days as in the case of 2009 USNS Impeccable incident. Overall, they expect China’s NSC to bring
more transparency and consistency to Chinese
foreign policies because it will consolidate all the
domestic actors involved under one clear policy
line.
Such changes might or might not materialize, but
they hardly constitute Xi’s purpose of founding the
NSC. When designing his political vision for China
in the next decades, Xi repeatedly mentions his
“China Dream”: a "strong-nation dream of a great
revival of the Chinese people“. That means first to
secure domestic security and the CPC’s rule and
to unify the CPC’s leadership.
Diverting from “Hide and Bide” policy
The second part of the China dream might consist
of diverting from Deng Xiaoping’s “Hide and
Bide” policy – a policy that has kept China
away from getting politically or militarily involved in international conflicts, and making
neither allies nor enemies for about three decades. However, this policy has gradually been
transformed in the past years, as China integrated deeply into the world economy and can
no longer passively follow the “Hide and Bide”
paradigm. Nor can it strictly adhere to the “NonInterference Principle” that used to help developing countries to fend off Cold War superpowers’
intervention, as China finds itself increasingly involved in the domestic affairs of other countries
that have strong economic links with China.
“Differentiate enemies from friends”
Aiming at a more proactive foreign policy, Xi
Jinping defined his global strategy focusing
on three areas in the coming years: a “New
Silk Road” through Central Asia reaching Europe, a “Silk Road on Sea” reaching beyond
the Arabian Sea and an “Economic Corridor”
connecting India, Myanmar and Bangladesh.
These “silk roads” extend all the way into the Middle East and were warmly welcome by the Gulf
Cooperation Council delegates during their January visit to Beijing. These far reaching grand picture strategies put even higher demands on
China’s security planning and cooperation. According to Yan Xuetong, a senior government advisor leading the Institute of Modern International
Relations at Tsinghua University, China now has
a stronger wish to gain the political support of
neighbouring countries in order to secure
China’s economic, security and other interests. However, this clearly appears very difficult to achieve as China’s is facing high mistrust and even animosity in the region due to
its increasingly assertive behaviour in the
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Number 4 · 24th of February 2014 · Revised on 28th of February 2014
maritime disputes with its neighbours.
“Under the leadership of Xi Jinping, China will
start to differentiate enemies from friends. For
those countries who are willing to play a constructive role in China’s rising, China would let them
gain bigger real interests from its development.”
said Yan after a debate with US scholar John
Mearsheimer in November 2013 (Yan, 2014). This
prediction portrays a China version of the Carrot
and Stick policy in the 21st century. It will not only
lure the countries involved into helping to consolidate China’s rise in global power structure, but
also selectively punish those who undermine its
rise, using economic, political and security levers.
The definition of “national security” has also been
expanded to include all aspects of China’s power,
including China’s bargaining power in global natural resources markets, according to Chinese
scholars and experts. (Xin, 2013, Hu/ Wang, 2014)
Besides the assertiveness in China’s South China
Sea and East China Sea territorial disputes with
the neighbouring countries, there are growing
signs that Xi Jinping is ready to take a more
proactive security policy globally. A small experiment was done in December 2013, when
China signed an agreement with Ukraine, promising the latter “relevant security guarantees when
Ukraine encounters an invasion involving nuclear
weapons or Ukraine is under threat of a nuclear
invasion”. (Xinhua, 2013) There were various interpretation and counter arguments from Chinese
and international observers and experts on
whether this statement invokes the traditional concept of a “nuclear umbrella” (Yu, Miles 2013, Yu,
Ligong, 2013, He, 2013, Dill / Jay, 2014, Conroy,
2014). It is unlikely that China breaks its fundamental stance on Non-Proliferation Treaty. However, there is no explanation on why such a security guarantee as already included in China’s
statement to Ukraine in 1994 (Dill / Jay, 2014)
needed to be reiterated at this sensitive point in
time. Concluding that the agreement simply
“states the obvious” does not provide a fully satisfactory answer. Ultimately, the diplomatic purpose
that the reiteration of the security guarantee
serves remains intriguingly ambiguous. [An earlier
version of this text cited the incorrect translation
used by Yu, 2013; further explanation to reflect
the state of the discussion has been added]
The fast growing Chinese Navy recently conducted a drilling in the Indian Ocean for the first
time, which is another proof of China’s readiness
to act like a global power. (Sevastopulo/Clove,
2014) Yan also predicts that China will not only
impose sanction on countries that are against
China (which has happened to Japan and the
Philippines in 2010 and 2012 due to territorial disputes, to Norway in 2010 after the Nobel Peace
Prize was given to a Chinese dissident), but also
isolate them internationally. If successful, the new
NSC can become a powerful instrument to
achieve these goals.
The 2014 National People’s Congress in early
March will probably push the establishment of the
NSC further and legitimize it as a dual party-state
institution. If not, that would be a clear sign that
the process is facing major political opposition and
obstacles. However, with or without the NSC, the
new paradigm of the “China Dream” will continue
to shape and change the architecture of global security in the years to come.
MERICS Contact for this analysis:
liwen.qin@merics.de
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Number 4 · 24th of February 2014 · Revised on 28th of February 2014
_________________________________________________________________________________
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